Before the creation of the United States, the world was divided between those “born booted and spurred,” possessing the supposed natural right to rule over others “born with saddles on their backs.” Philosophers may have condemned such injustice but rulers continued to rule as they always had: with the strong oppressing the weak and the master oppressing the slave.
The United States was founded on a different claim, articulated in the Declaration of Independence: that human beings are equal in their possession of natural rights and that accordingly, no one has the natural right to rule over another without the latter’s consent.
The rejection of that claim, either by the Progressives of Wilson’s era or those claiming the progressive mantle in our own time, opens the door to unending racial strife. If we reject the claims of the Declaration, the Tulsa massacre of 1921 may turn out to have been merely a harbinger of things to come.
By Mackubin Owens • June 16, 2020